Christmas Magic (Believe Book 2)

by Shea Balik

  Nick chuckled. “There isn’t. I promise.” No way was Nick going to do something that Tim had asked him not to.

  Carefully, he led Tim to where the kitchen opened up into the living and dining area. Wanting to see his expression, Nick moved so he was standing next to Tim with his body turned toward his love. “Okay,” he said. “You can open them.”

  Tim’s blue-grey eyes opened and widened as he took in the boxes and boxes that were stacked everywhere, along with shopping bags full of garland and lights. In order for Tim to have any clue what was happening, Nick had opened many of the totes and boxes in order to see the Christmas decorations inside.

  When he didn’t say anything, Nick worried Tim had wanted to put his own personal touch on Christmas instead of using Nick’s family decorations. “If you don’t want to use any of this, we can go shopping for whatever you want. I planned a decorating party Sunday evening with Theresa, Mr. Sullivan, and some of the friends you have at the diner and the toy store.”

  For some reason Tim didn’t get along with anyone at the café. He claimed they were all college students working there, who seemed to think they were better than everyone else. He couldn’t stand how they made fun of the customers, even going so far as to bully some of their coworkers into quitting.

  Tim admitted he would have quit long ago, if he hadn’t needed the job so much. Nick and Mr. Sullivan were doing their best to convince him to take the full-time position at the toy store so he wouldn’t have to work at the café any longer, but Tim was sure he wasn’t qualified to help the customers at Klassic Toys.

  “I can always cancel if you don’t want to do it,” Nick added when Tim still hadn’t said anything. “I mean, I had hoped you would enjoy decorating, but I don’t want to force…”

  Tim’s lips landed on his, effectively stopping Nick’s babbling. When he pulled back, Tim smiled up at Nick. “I love you. This is perfect.”

  He giggled, actually giggled, like a kid in a candy store, as he went from box to box to peer into their contents. “Are these your parents’ decorations?” he asked in awe as he pulled out a beautiful white angel that his mom had loved to put on the top of the tree.

  Nick made his way through the many boxes to stand next to Tim. He held out a hand and gently touched one of the angel’s wings with the tip of his finger. “This was actually my great grandmother’s. My mom used to say when she put the angel on top of the tree, she imagined our ancestors were smiling down upon us, bringing joy into our lives.”

  Tim leaned into Nick’s side with his head resting on Nick’s shoulder. “That’s so sweet. I think I would have liked your mom.”

  “I know she would have loved you,” Nick told Tim sincerely. “My dad, too.”

  There was doubt in those blue-grey eyes that Nick hated seeing. “I mean it,” he told Tim before he could find some way of convincing himself that Nick was just saying that to be nice. “All they ever wanted for their children was to find happiness.”

  He pulled Tim closer in order to kiss him gently. Then he rested his forehead against Tim’s so they could only see each other. “You, my love, make me deliriously happy.”

  Joy leapt into Tim’s eyes. “You make me happy, too, you know. I mean…” Tim leaned back so as not to break their closeness but still allow for his hands to spread out to encompass the room. “You are always doing things like this for me. It’s… well…” Tim nuzzled his nose along Nick’s. “It’s everything I always dreamed of but never knew could be real.”

  This time, their kiss was more demanding as they both clung to one another. As they pulled back, they both said, “I love you,” at the same time, causing them to laugh as they made their way to their bedroom.

  Because whether Tim was ready to accept it or not, Nick was determined to make it theirs.

  CHAPTER 21

  “Hey, Tim, are we using the garland with the colored lights or the white?” Theresa asked as she held up two strands of brightly lit greenery.

  There was no way he could choose. He loved them both. But as big as Nick’s living room was, he didn’t think he could use them both without it looking odd. Fortunately for him, Nick made sure the garland he’d bought was rated for both outdoors and indoors.

  “I think we should put the white lights outside and keep the colored ones just for us.” Especially since Tim noticed most of the neighbors were sticking with white only decorations outside. There were a few who had some specialty decorations that were more colorful, but the basic lights being used even for those houses was white.

  It was a shame really, to be so boring and bland, but since this wasn’t Tim’s house, he didn’t want Nick to be ostracized by the neighbors for being the oddball in the neighborhood. At least inside, he could be as bold and colorful as he wanted, assuming Nick meant it when he said he wanted Tim to be in charge of the decorations.

  Theresa’s face fell as she dropped the garland to the floor. “Are we decorating outside tonight, too?” Clearly, that wasn’t something she had been prepared to do. “But it’s getting dark and I wore this cute dress instead of something that would make climbing ladders easier.”

  Nick wrapped an arm around his sister’s neck and pulled her in to rub a noogie on the top of her head before releasing her. “Like you would have helped outside anyway.” Theresa opened her mouth to argue but Nick cut her off. “We both know you hate decorating the outside.”

  Chuckling, Nick teased his sister. “One year I believe you even faked the flu to get out of it.”

  Theresa stomped her foot. “I was sick,” she insisted.

  “Yeah, right,” Nick said sarcastically. “Until we finished and were making hot cocoa. Then suddenly you were all better and able to not only drink the cocoa, but make the Christmas cookies.”

  Like a little kid, Theresa stuck out her tongue at her brother. “I can’t help it if I got better in time for the good stuff.”

  Nick rolled his eyes at Theresa, then bent down to pick up the garland with white lights. “What do you think, love?” Nick asked Tim. “Should we try to do the outside before it gets too dark, or save it for another day?”

  “What other day?” Tim asked sincerely. “It’s not like I have any days off with three jobs. It will be a week before I’ll have part of the day off and who knows what the weather will be like.”

  Nick nodded. “Outside decorations first, it is.” Nick flashed his sister a mischievous grin. “Good thing I noticed you had some old sweatpants and sweatshirts upstairs in your room.”

  The death glare Theresa gave her brother had everyone laughing. “Jerk,” she said under breath as she stomped up the stairs to change.

  “I don’t suppose there will some hot cocoa for us when we come back in, will there?” Mr. Sullivan said as he rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

  “We even have little marshmallows,” Tim told his boss.

  Everyone cheered as they headed outside with strands of garland and boxes of white lights. In all, six of Tim’s coworkers, whom he considered friends, joined them, along with three of Nick’s coworkers. It was a lot of people, but then again, Nick’s house was large enough to need that many people if they hoped to get everything done.

  It took them four hours, but they’d managed to get the outside done, and most of the inside as well. There were still a few areas that Tim wanted to add decorations to, but they’d used everything they’d had so it would take some shopping to fill in the rest.

  “Thank you,” Tim whispered so only Nick would hear him as they and the others sat around the fireplace drinking more hot cocoa and eating the premade cookies that just needed to be baked. It wasn’t the same as making them from scratch, but with any luck, that would be something they could do another day.

  Nick placed a kiss against the side of Tim’s head. “It was my pleasure, love. I want to give you everything you deserve.”

  Little did Tim known what Nick meant with those words, but he couldn’t deny falling in love with him a little more with
each surprise.

  ****

  “Ever heard of the twelve days of Christmas?” Nick asked Tim as they went ice skating in the mall where Tim had worked as Santa’s helper the year before and been fired after that disastrous scene at Easter.

  Tim frowned up at Nick as he laced his skates. “You mean the song with the five golden rings?”

  What did a song have to do with Nick taking him skating? Although, it wasn’t just the skating. Since the night they’d decorated his house, Nick had managed to surprise him with making a gingerbread house, from scratch. That had taken a couple of days. Which had been perfect, since Tim didn’t have a lot of off time. So the first free time, they had made the gingerbread dough and baked the pieces they would need. The second day of free time, they had put it all together and the third, they had finished decorating it.

  The Sunday afternoon that Tim had off, they’d finished buying Christmas decorations for the house, picked up Christmas cards for their coworkers and when they got home, Nick pulled out supplies to make popcorn strings for the tree, along with a few other ornaments for them to create on their own.

  Tim would cherish every memory, but he had to admit he was a bit overwhelmed. In his whole life he hadn’t experienced so much fun, but to do it within a couple of weeks was… well, he wasn’t quite sure what it was. A huge part of him was thrilled to enjoy each new experience. But it was that other part of him that had Tim on edge. It was as if he were waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  Life had hammered him hard into knowing that things were never this good without something going horribly wrong. Who was he kidding? Nothing had ever been this good, which left Tim wondering what would be the repercussions of being so happy?

  “The song may mention the twelve days of Christmas, but I’m talking more about the days leading up to Christmas, not the rings, birds, or lords a leaping.” Nick leaned over as Tim sat up and kissed him gently. “I want to give you those twelve days of fun for Christmas, just spread out, since your jobs don’t leave you with a lot of time to do twelve days in a row of fun.”

  “But why?” Tim wanted to bang his head on the ice for being so insensitive. Nick was trying to do something nice for Tim and he was questioning his motivation.

  Thankfully, Nick being Nick, didn’t take offense. “Because I love you and I want you to have all the fun you missed out on as a child.”

  Tim shot to his feet. He had to move or he was going to cry in front of all these people. He may have embarrassed himself plenty of times with Nick by letting the tears roll down his face, but he’d be damned if he’d let the world see.

  “Come on, let’s skate,” he said as he stepped onto the ice. He’d been watching the skaters for at least half an hour and Tim hadn’t thought it looked all that hard. So, how did he end up flat on his back, staring up at the mall’s ceiling, unable to breathe?

  He’d been right. Happiness came with a price. As he tried to suck in much needed air, Tim wondered if, for him, that price was death.

  Then warm, strong hands were on his face, cradling his cheeks. “Calm down, Tim. Take short breaths. You just had the wind knocked out of you, but I promise, you’ll be fine.”

  Tim’s lungs were screaming that Nick was wrong, but everything else within him listened to his deep voice. More importantly, his body obeyed and slowly, he found himself able to breath once more.

  Huh. Maybe it was okay to be happy. Sure, he’d just embarrassed himself and he could hear many of the skaters laughing at him, but not only was Tim alive, Nick was still right there, by his side.

  CHAPTER 22

  Had Nick known how much work planning twelve activities would be, he might have cut that number in half. It didn’t help that Tim hardly had time to participate, making Nick work even harder to be creative. Good thing he was in marketing and creativity was part of his job.

  Too bad his career wasn’t able to help him come up with more ideas. He’d wanted to take Tim skiing but with it being two hours away, they would end up spending most of their time driving instead of having a chance to enjoy the snow. It would have to wait another year.

  But that would also mean, no skiing, tubing, or even something as simple as building a snowman. Sure, it snowed in Charlotte every year, but there was no way to know if it would be enough to make a snowman. Some years it snowed less than an inch and usually it was well into January before they saw any white stuff.

  At least they’d been able to ice skate. Yeah, Tim had fallen, badly, but his boyfriend refused to stay down. He’d gotten back onto his feet and wobbled around the small arena. It had taken all of Nick’s willpower not to laugh at Tim’s attempts, but he refused to make Tim feel bad for not knowing how to skate.

  The only activity Nick had left on his list was to make Christmas cookies, which he was planning to do on Tim’s night off from the diner on Wednesday. But that still left nearly two weeks until Christmas for Nick to fill with activities.

  Scouring the internet, Nick frowned as most of the things they listed he and Tim had already done. Then he spied something that would be fun for several reasons, one of which was because they could cuddle before the fire and stay in for a change.

  Watch Christmas movies.

  That could actually be something they fit in over several days when Tim was off from one of his three jobs. He looked over the list of top twenty movies and made his own list for them to watch. This was perfect as there were full length feature films as well as half-hour TV specials.

  But that still left at least one more Sunday where Nick needed to come up with something special. As he continued to scroll down the list, he frowned, not seeing anything new. He had another full week before he needed to come up with a plan. Nick just hoped he could find fun stuff for them to do.

  Wednesday night, Nick suggested Tim change into his pajamas because he had another surprise for him. Tim looked at him oddly, but he did as Nick said.

  While Tim was upstairs changing, Nick started dinner. It wasn’t anything special, just spaghetti, but he’d decided since he wanted to enjoy cuddling with Tim watching a movie, dinner should be something easy and quick.

  By the time Tim came down, the water was boiling and Nick put the noodles into the water. “I’ve got the meat sauce simmering and the spaghetti cooking. Would you mind putting the garlic toast in the oven while I go change?”

  Tim gave him a quick kiss. “I would love to, handsome. You gonna tell me what we’re doing tonight or leave me guessing?”

  Nick grinned as he wrapped his arms around Tim and pulled him in for another kiss. “I think I’m going to leave you guessing. Builds the anticipation.”

  Tim quirked a brow. “This better be good, buddy.”

  Happy, Nick chuckled. “It is, love. I promise.”

  On his way to the stairs, Nick stopped, then started the fire. He was grateful that he had thought to stack the wood and kindling the night before so all he had to do was strike a match and light it.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, Nick quickly changed into sleep pants and a t-shirt before heading back downstairs. Just as he reached the bottom, he heard the timer go off, so he figured this would be a good time to set up the movie while Tim finished getting dinner ready.

  By the time he got everything set and made it back into the kitchen, Tim was just dishing up both of their plates. “Smells good, my love.” He pressed a kiss to the side of Tim’s head as he took his plate. “Thank you for finishing. I’ve got everything set up in the living room for us. I suggest we eat on the couch tonight.”

  That wasn’t all that unusual for them. They either ate at the island on the barstools or on the living room couch when they were home.

  “Sounds good to me.” Tim followed him. He glanced over at the TV but nothing revealing was on the screen for him to know what was happening. “You started the fire,” Tim exclaimed. It was something they both loved, especially as the nights were getting quite chilly the closer they got to Christmas.

  Nick picke
d up the big fluffy blanket from where he’d put it near the couch. “And I have our favorite blanket.”

  The smile on Tim’s face was beaming. “Does this mean we get to snuggle?”

  “I think snuggling is definitely on the menu for the night.” They each placed their plates and drinks on the table in front of the couch before sitting down. When Tim was nestled against Nick’s side, he draped the blanket over them and pressed play on the remote to start their first movie.

  “Elf?” Tim exclaimed. “I’ve always wanted to watch this.”

  Nick wrapped one arm around Tim to draw him closer and kissed his lips. “I know, love. I have a whole list of Christmas movies we can watch whenever we’re home and want to curl up in front of the fire.”

  Tim’s blue-grey eyes shone brightly. “You are the best boyfriend in the world.” Tim kissed him again, before picking up their plates and handing Nick his.

  As the movie started, Nick mentally patted himself on the back for another great idea. Now he just needed to come up with something for the last Sunday before Christmas.

  ****

  “Good morning, Nick,” Mr. Sullivan called out as Nick entered Klassic Toys.

  “Hello, Mr. Sullivan.” Out of all Tim’s bosses, Mr. Sullivan was Nick’s favorite. The older man really looked out for his employees and he seemed to have a soft spot for Tim, which was probably why he was trying so hard to convince Tim to work for him full-time.

  “What brings you by so early?” Sundays were Tim and Nick’s date night, and it started after his shift at Klassic Toys. “Tim doesn’t get off for another hour,” Mr. Sullivan said. “Normally, I’d just let him off but he’s only half done with the display for that new-fangled toy everyone is clamoring to get.”

  Nick smiled at Mr. Sullivan’s choice of words. He’d learned by now, new-fangled meant electronic, and a total waste of time in Mr. Sullivan’s eyes. Oh, he still sold many of the electronic toys, he had to in order to stay in business, but it didn’t mean he had to like them.